In recent years, an automated driving car capable of automatically driving without human operation has been developed vigorously. The automated driving car automatically controls steering of a vehicle so as to drive along a guiding route generated in advance. The guiding route in this case is generated by using lane network data (data defining connection property of lanes on a road), for example. In the case in which the guiding route is generated by using the lane network data, a vehicle is controlled in such a manner that a vehicle position to be detected by using a GPS receiver or the like is moved along a position of a lane network.
There are known the techniques for generating a guiding route in an intersection to perform driving control of a vehicle (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 2006-273230 and 2010-26326, for example). The Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-273230 describes that a driving track in a guiding intersection to be guided through a route guidance is predicted based on an entry lane and an exit lane in the guiding intersection and vehicle control is performed based on the driving track.
The Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-26326 describes that in-intersection lane data indicative of an in-intersection lane for a combination of an entry point and an exit point of an intersection is generated in accordance with an intersection database having at least one combination of accessible entry points and exit points, the in-intersection lane thus generated is connected to the entry and exit lanes of the intersection to generate a vehicle guiding route for guiding a vehicle.